And that was just the first step.
Once she got out of this cabin, she had to figure out a way back to civilization. She had no true gauge for telling how close they were, and even with a road to follow, there was no guarantee she’d even reach the nearest city or town safely. No, the odds were not in Rose’s favor. No matter from which angle she looked at the situation, the fact remained that she was well and truly at Dante’s mercy.
If he was to be believed, he wanted to marry her.
Rose snorted. Yeah, like she was going to fall for that. She’d believed his feelings for her once before, and she wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. Whatever Dante’s goals, he might want her, but marrying her couldn’t possibly be the end game.
If it was…
That meant he was telling the truth about their farce of a relationship being at least as real to him as it was to her.
She pressed her hand to her chest. No. She couldn’t believe it. It didn’t make any fucking sense. Better to play out the scenarios and get the hell out of here. She and Dante had no future. Even if her foolish heart won, and she came down with a spontaneous case of Stockholm syndrome—which she was pretty sure didn’t even exist—her family would put an end to that the moment she arrived back in the city with her new husband. She’d be a widow before the day was out.
Honestly, that was probably the easiest solution. Bend instead of fighting. Let him win her over however he intended to and fast-track this process to getting back to civilization. It would be a different kind of battle of wills, but surely she could prevail… Couldn’t she?
Unless she was just twisting herself into knots in an excuse to take what she wanted from this man. She wasn’t a bad daughter, a horrible heir, if she had to seduce Dante to get free.
She shook her head. “Honesty, Rose.” Honestly, she had no way out. From her little tour of the cabin yesterday after getting dressed, there were no exits or windows that she could climb out of. The odds were stacked against her, and with time of the essence, she’d have to use every tool available. That was the truth.
But not the full truth.
The uncomfortable fact remained that while she might have thought herself in love with Jackson Smith, she’d never desired him with the ferocity she desired Dante. Things had been comfortable with Jackson. Nice. Sweet. Safe. A counter to the rest of her life, a selfish little vacation for only her every time she went to his apartment.
There was no separating Dante from her world. He was in it up to his eyeballs. She didn’t have to pretend right now, and even if he was the enemy, that truth attracted her. He wasn’t expecting her to be above reproach or be thinking of anyone but herself. Not her family, not her people. She couldn’t help being drawn to that. She didn’t have to pretend with him. Not anymore. He didn’t want her because she was Rose Romanov, heir to the Romanov empire in New York.
He only wanted her.
She followed the sound of music to the other side of the kitchen and a door she hadn’t seen last night because it was cleverly tucked into a little nook in the wall. It had been left cracked open, and she used a single finger to press it open farther. Inside was a home gym, but like everything else in this “rustic” cabin, it was the height of luxury. There was a treadmill and rowing machine tucked in the far corner and a selection of free weights set up, complete with rack and bench.
Dante was on his back on the bench, shirtless and sweaty, pressing up a truly impressive amount of weight stacked on either side of the bar. He was relatively vulnerable like this, or at least she’d assume that if she didn’t know better. No matter what he said about their theoretical future, Dante wasn’t going to let her hurt him just to make her happy. He wanted her, but he wanted her in a specific way and at a specific time. No matter how he pretended to react when she threatened him, she knew men like him.
He might not lay a finger on her, but he would use every other tool in his arsenal against her. If somehow her family found this cabin, he wouldn’t hesitate to hurt them if they tried to take her from him.
She couldn’t keep playing things so harshly. Doing so put the people she loved in danger, either from the Capparelli family or from Dante himself. Rose couldn’t live with either option. Better to play along and make him think he was winning her over in some twisted version of Beauty and the Beast. The sooner he dropped his guard, the sooner she could do what needed to be done in order to free herself. And if she got what she wanted out of it in the process, too?